


Fire and Gold

by achieve_k



Series: Fire and Gold [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, FAHC, Fake AH Crew, GTA AU, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24793555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achieve_k/pseuds/achieve_k
Summary: All that Jeremy wanted was to breeze through his three year prison sentence without incident. To walk out of that shithole a free man, with no more and no less enemies than he went in with.Then he met Michael fucking Jones, and all that went right out the window.When the Fake's best shooter gets caught and incarcerated in their prison, their empire begins to crumble, and Jeremy is thrusted into something so much bigger than he ever could have imagined.
Relationships: Alfredo Diaz/Gavin Free, Jeremy Dooley/Gavin Free, Jeremy Dooley/Michael Jones, Matt Bragg/Jeremy Dooley
Series: Fire and Gold [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075433
Comments: 26
Kudos: 101





	1. Fire

**Author's Note:**

> hey friends! <3
> 
> i'll be posting the chapters over the next few days :) they're all ready to go. i like to separate to make it more exciting hehe, so let me know what you think!
> 
> enjoy!!
> 
> NOTE: the 'ships' in this story aren't central to the plot. you can definitely read them romantically if that's what you enjoy reading, but you won't be distracted by them if that's not your thing either!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi all <3
> 
> some of you may have read this fic a while ago; tonight I'll be updating it into a series!  
> as you can tell, I've edited -redacted- out of the fic completely, and won't ever include him in any works again. obviously this has meant there's some changes to the original work as well as the brand new content in the next part of this series, so please read both! :) 
> 
> sending love to you all, and thanks for reading!

Much like every other low-life in this shitty jail, Jeremy Dooley was fighting for any chance he had at seeing the Fake's best shooter in the flesh.

News always spread like a nasty virus between the prisoners so no matter how hard the guards may have tried to keep their classified info on the down low, it always ended up making the rounds somehow. Something as big as this was never going to stay under wraps like they wanted it to. Everybody knew by now that Alfredo Diaz had been caught, but to hear that he was being transported under maximum security to _this_ prison was a sure fire way to create a dangerous buzz of excitement; it didn’t take a lot in here. There was hardly anything else to do besides crowding the windows, taking elbows to the ribs and kicks to the backs of the legs if it meant getting just one look at the infamous killer.

Jeremy wasn’t typically one to follow the crowd but there was no way he was missing this once in a lifetime opportunity. Maybe it would be boring as hell, and Diaz would simply be escorted in without incident; he didn’t care at all. At least it was something to do. With all his might, Jeremy was defending his spot right at the front of the crowd. There was always a possibility that they were about to get a show like no other, and he’d be damned if he lost his front row seat to some petty criminal.

Once the armoured convoy was passing through the gates of the prison, only just visible from the window Jeremy had claimed as his own, the crowds behind him mostly calmed down. There was no time for fighting anymore. Nobody wanted to miss a single second of this. A whole army of prison guards were ready and waiting to meet him at the entrance, and there was yet another small squadron exiting their vehicles and pulling a cuffed man out of one of the cars.

The cafeteria fell absolutely silent as he appeared in sight for the very first time. Most if not all of these men had only seen glimpses of him on fuzzy surveillance footage and now there he was, mere meters away from them in all his terrifying glory.

Or at least, that’s what you would have expected to feel in this moment. Though he could feel the presence of fear settling into the men around him, Jeremy couldn’t help but to be a little underwhelmed.

He was stone-faced and at least a little intimidating for sure, but without his armoury or the flashy red jacket, it was easy to see Diaz as… just another one of them. A faceless criminal in a sea of others that society had given up on. He was smaller than Jeremy expected. Maybe it was simply an arrogance that he held in himself, since just about every other fucker crowding this window seemed breathless at the sight of the man, but he wasn’t all that impressed when faced with Alfredo. Well, when faced with him behind bulletproof glass and inches of concrete, that is.

Someone behind him scoffed, and Jeremy didn’t turn to see who it was but it confirmed to him that apparently he wasn’t the only one feeling a little bit disappointed by all of this. This wasn’t the scary monster that they had all been promised. The show may as well have been over. As Diaz was escorted across the prison yard by his own personal army Jeremy was about ready to release his perfect vantage point to some other bored prisoner, but all at once, the atmosphere seemed to shift. A strange but strong kind of tension settled. It felt like just about everybody was holding their breath.

The Fake was face to face with Burns (the head honcho of the prison guards) by now and he was someone who just about everyone in the room knew all too well and despised with every fibre of their being. The man was oppressive in nature, cruel to his core and too well acquainted with his own authority in a way that made you question his very sanity. As most of the prisoners knew well, he had been waiting for the day he’d see such a valuable asset of Ramsey's in a pair of cuffs for a damn long time now. What would he do, face to face with the one he had been hunting for so long?

There was an exchange that Jeremy couldn’t hear from this far away. All that he knew, and all that he really needed to know, was that it had ended with Alfredo Diaz smashing his head into Burns’ skull and knocking the man clean out. There were guns trained on him from all angles without a moment’s hesitation, a chorus of ‘stand down! stand down!’ but he hadn’t even flinched.

Just like that, Jeremy understood entirely why this guy and his crew were not to be fucked with.

\---

“You’re new.”

Any hopes Jeremy had for having a peaceful lunch for once in his damn life were crushed as a man slid right into the seat opposite him, so confident you would think he had been invited there. Maybe there was nothing malicious in his intent, but the way that this guy was grinning at him made Jeremy want to knock his teeth out; something about being here had really given him a complex with his pent up rage. Prison sure was reformative, alright.

“Nope,” he eventually responded over a mouthful of bland food. Jeremy didn’t bother meeting the guy’s eyes, hoping his obvious disinterest would discourage him enough that he would back out because there was no way in hell that Jeremy was out here looking for friends. He wasn’t exactly _lying_ but he sure wasn’t telling the truth either. It had been well over a month now since Jeremy was first locked up in this jailhouse, which meant he was certainly settled in and less new than some of the other dudes filtering in over the past few weeks. Still, he wasn’t quite sure that he’d crossed the boundary lines out of ‘fresh meat’ territory and that was the last place that anybody wanted to admit to being.

“You are. I can always tell.” If this dude was going to be persistent than Jeremy wasn’t going to shy away from getting aggressive. In a place like this, he knew he had to establish himself as someone you wouldn’t want to fuck with from the word go. First impressions were everything in prison.

“Calling me a liar?” Jeremy huffed, pushing his tray away and finally making eye contact with his new opponent. He was honestly surprised by what he was met with. The guy sitting across the table was sporting a cocky grin but the dimples in his cheeks just made him look soft, and it caught Jeremy off guard that someone who looked so… gentle would even dare to approach him. Had he not done enough to make himself appear intimidating? Oh well, he figured, it was a little too late for all that now.

“I am,” the guy laughed. It was a bold move, but Jeremy kept his mouth shut on it for now. “That bother you? Something else I can call you?”

It took a moment’s consideration for Jeremy to respond, but when he did, he had already returned to his food with little interest in dragging this conversation out any further. It was pretty obvious to him that he could easily take this guy in a fight and it would hardly be proving anything to his fellow inmates for him to pick on somebody so much softer than him. “Jeremy,” he rolled his eyes.

“Michael,” and there was that annoying grin again.

“Didn’t ask.”

“Well now you know,” Michael continued to pester him and by this point Jeremy was genuinely considering finding somewhere else to eat. “Jesus dude, who fuckin’ died and made you so goddamn miserable?”

“I’m not looking to make any fucking friends.” Jeremy cut right to the chase, having grown tired of Michael’s insistence on _talking_ already and wanting to make it perfectly clear that this was leading nowhere for the both of them. “I’m a month into a three-year sentence and I’m planning on making it through without any more bullshit keeping me locked up longer than I have to be.”

“So you’re on your best behaviour?” Michael actually had the audacity to laugh at him then. Jeremy had to wonder who the fuck this guy thought he was. “Sounds like a boring-ass way to spend three years, Jeremy.”

“I want you to know right now that I’m not above a fight in the cafeteria, buddy.” Hopefully a threat or two would have him backing off.

“That’s more like it.” Apparently not.

“You realise I could beat you to a fucking pulp with one arm tied behind my back, right?” Jeremy asked, a genuine question. “Does that not worry you?”

“Oh I’m not worried about that _at all_. That’s how I know you’re new,” Michael had laughed. “There’s an angry, twenty-six-year-old Jersey man underneath all this boyish charm. I had to make that pretty obvious a long time ago.”

Momentarily, Jeremy had been distracted from his own annoyance by that revelation. “You’re _twenty-six_?” Honestly, Michael barely even looked a day over eighteen. It was no wonder he would have needed to build up a formidable reputation for himself in here, walking around with a face so smug and so… punch-worthy.

“Yup, and counting.” He flashed a toothy grin. “Spent six of those years in this shithole. And it took all six years for something even remotely exiting to happen.”

Squinting in confusion, Jeremy wondered just what had gotten Michael so riled up. Surely it didn’t have anything to do with him, anyway. Jeremy did absolutely everything in his power to avoid everything and everyone that might draw too much attention to him. He planned to spend his three years here totally under the radar and slip out of this place like he never spent a second inside of it, returning to his old life as though he never even left. Things would be undoubtedly different on the outside, but he could only plan to cross that bridge when he came to it.

It was becoming increasingly clear that the best way to get Michael to go away might just be to humour him for a little while. Jeremy could probably manage that, he thought. “Alright. And what’s that?”

“Alfredo fucking Diaz getting locked up in here with us,” Michael’s voice was exaggerated, sarcastic. It actually made Jeremy smile despite himself, because he knew that was in mockery of what everybody had expected when they first heard that they would be sharing a prison with an infamous member of Geoff Ramsey's pack. The reality had been much less thrilling than it first appeared. Nobody had seen Diaz at all since he was brought in, and nobody knew where they were hiding him either. “Except the _one fucking time_ we get someone exciting walking through those doors, all he does is put Burns out of action for a week and then he disappears.” Michael sighed, clearly feeling equally as put out about it as just about everybody else. “Oh well. At least we’ve got something to look forward to, now that he’s in here with us.”

Jeremy scoffed. “Yeah right. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was six feet under in a strait jacket by now; we’ll probably never even see the guy again.”

“No way, he’s definitely got some crazy shit planned. He’s a _Fake_ _._ ”

Though he wasn’t sure when this had become a mutual conversation, Michael had really roped Jeremy in here. Talk of the Fakes had mostly died down after a week of inactivity. Irritatingly, Diaz was still all that Jeremy could think about while he counted the days, and it was honestly somewhat freeing to have someone to discuss it with. As much as he may not have been looking for a long-term companion in Michael, he was good for a little bit of idle chatter and time wasting. It couldn’t hurt.

“You think he’s just hanging out, shooting the shit? If they had some plan, why wait weeks to pull it off?” Jeremy insisted. He was pretty certain of himself, considering he’d had this talk in his own mind already. It was easy to think that the Fakes, in all their rumoured glory, had a master escape plan because that made the whole thing seem worth it; in reality, it was far more probable that Diaz would face his execution whenever it was due to come. That was hardly the thrilling end that his legacy demanded but this was the sad truth of it.

“Nah,” Michael dismissed him completely. “Ramsey’s dogs always have something up their sleeve.”

It was a nice thought for sure. Jeremy would do anything to witness a little excitement from afar, but he had little hope for it. “We’ll see.”

\---

While he didn’t know exactly when or why it had happened, Michael had grown on Jeremy so much over the past few days since they met that he figured he had no choice but to call the guy a friend by now. It turned out that they had an awful lot in common. They would often waste their limited free time together in the gym, challenging each other to pointless competitions or beating each other’s pull-up record. Michael seemed to already have established himself as a force to be reckoned with, so it was an added bonus to this new companionship that nobody really bothered to give Jeremy a hard time anymore either.

Well, nobody other than the prison guards that was.

Jeremy and Michael could scare any fighting spirit out of the other prisoners without a problem but it was hardly as if they could put the fear of God into the guys in charge. Rather swiftly once they had noticed the blooming friendship between the two, the guards had taken an undeniable disliking to them. It was what had gotten them into stupid situations like this one, forced into cleaning up all the litter from the courtyard while the other prisoners from their cell block enjoyed the sunshine on their break from their usual posts.

Michael was a valuable ally when it came to not getting your ass kicked in this place, but he sure did seem to rub the officers up the wrong way. They did everything they could to make Jeremy and Michael’s lives a living hell.

“Who did you fuck with to make them hate you so much anyway?” Jeremy asked, gathering up some discarded paper cups to be thrown into the bag Michael was holding. The job was thankless but luckily not particularly tiring. They could breeze their way through it with idle conversation and hopefully pass the time a little quicker.

“Oh man,” Michael laughed under his breath. “You want the long or short version?”

Knowing that Michael would likely talk for days if Jeremy allowed him to, it didn’t take him long to decide on that. “Short.”

Without a word, Michael pointed to a block of the prison that Jeremy rarely paid any mind to. It was abandoned and, as far as he was concerned, had been for the last few years after a pretty nasty fire broke out over there. The old maximum security cell used to be over there and if it weren’t for the terrible condition of the building now, Jeremy would have bet any money that it would be where they were hiding Ramsey's shooter. As it was though, the entire area was a safety hazard. The block was completely uninhabitable.

“What about it?” Jeremy frowned, not following at all until he saw that shark-like grin spread across Michael’s face.

“That’s my work.” He beamed. “That baby went up like a gas station.”

“Dude,” Jeremy mumbled almost sub-consciously, looking over the remnants of the old cell block and feeling as though he was seeing the sheer destruction over there for the first time. _Really_ seeing it, now that he was stood beside the very cause of it all. His new prison-buddy was something of a loose cannon and Jeremy already knew that of course, but being faced with the result of an outburst from Michael Jones certainly left him feeling a little small in comparison.

“Yeah. Friend of mine snuck a lighter in for me to remind me of home.” That was certainly an interesting choice of words, but Jeremy didn’t interrupt Michael to question him on it. He was sure he would find out what exactly was meant by that at some point down the line. They had an unfair few years left stuck together like this after all. “I guess I let it get a little out of hand. They don’t let me have visitors anymore,” Michael laughed, but there was bitterness to it. Jeremy heard it loud and clear.

Without doubt, this cesspit could drive a man insane without any reminders of what life was like outside of it. If Jeremy’s visits were stopped… if he wasn’t allowed to see Matt at all anymore… he didn’t know _what_ he would do; he imagined he would probably be an awful lot like Michael was now. Searching for scraps of a friendship in all the wrong places and clinging to the new guys to remind him of how it felt to be a free man. Jeremy still knew that feeling well, still longed for it. He had met plenty of men in here who had kissed their real lives goodbye a long time ago and condemned themselves to go on as prisoners in the land of the free forever.

Michael was somewhere in the middle of all of that. Essentially, he was clinging to the surface of freedom and looked to people like Jeremy to hoist him back up again.

“Did anybody die?” Jeremy asked bluntly. At the time of the fire, he had been a free man hearing about it all over the news. Never in his damn life would he have thought he would be _in here_ now, but things didn’t always go to plan for him and it wasn’t worth mulling over now.

If Jeremy was remembering that news coverage of the fire correctly, then he already knew the answer to his question. In all honesty, he just wanted to know how Michael felt about that.

“No one died,” Michael rolled his eyes. Jeremy knew him well enough now to take expressional cues from Michael, and it was clear as day that his question had struck a chord. “They’ll tell you that I killed people that day but I know nobody died.”

Sensing a strong case of denial, Jeremy decided to keep his mouth shut for once. It wasn’t worth squabbling with Michael over something that had happened years ago when Jeremy wasn’t even around in his life; unfortunately though, his silence only seemed to infuriate Michael even more.

“I’m telling you that no one fucking died dude.” He grumbled.

“Hey, I didn’t say shit,” Jeremy had to argue despite himself.

“No, but you don’t believe me do you?” At a loss for words, Jeremy said nothing again. He simply pursed his lips and continued his litter collection, but Michael had dropped the trash bag by now to stare at him, trying to read him no doubt, leaving Jeremy with no choice but to stare right back at him. He supposed it didn’t matter now, and he didn’t bother trying to keep the disbelief out of his eyes. “I can prove it to you.”

That certainly piqued Jeremy’s interest, especially considering the fact that Michael didn’t sound too sure of himself at all. Uncertainty was an odd emotion to witness in him. Michael wore his worry like he didn’t quite know how to hold it.

“Alright,” Jeremy shrugged. “So prove it.”


	2. Gold

There hadn’t been a single word shared between them after that as Michael lead Jeremy all the way across the courtyard and tried to keep the two of them out of any guard watch paths. Admittedly, Jeremy was growing bored of it. They were headed to one of many huge, square structures, a heavily guarded building where prison supplies were stored (food, clothes, beds and whatnot) and it was so trivial that he could have laughed if he weren’t so annoyed. When Michael had insisted he had proof that nobody had died in his random arson attack all those years ago, Jeremy had been expecting something genuinely _exciting_ to be unearthed; maybe some old prison records with evidence of the internal corruption or a secret underground passage to a set of cells that nobody would even know existed.

Anything but the same old storage centres that littered the prison courtyard and had done since Jeremy had first arrived here.

This was not new and nor was it thrilling. Jeremy was about ready to end this pointless escapade when Michael stopped him in his tracks, seemingly surveying the area and waiting for… something.

“Okay,” the redhead sighed, turning to face an irritated Jeremy. “I’m gonna start a fight.”

“You’re gonna fucking _what_ now?”

“And you’re gonna go in there and see for yourself.” Michael continued as though Jeremy hadn’t said a thing, signalling over to the storage building and making Jeremy throw his hands up in exasperation. They didn’t have time for these fruitless games and they certainly weren’t favourable enough right now to risk getting into even more trouble, picking fights and breaking into secure areas. Michael knew all of this. There was no reason at all for Jeremy to have to reiterate it, and before he could even begin to do so Michael was already heading for the closest group of thugs he thought he could take. Jeremy didn’t even get a second to react before Michael was shoving with all his might and sparking a mini-prison riot around himself.

Jeremy didn’t know what to do in this situation other than to simply remove himself from it. He could easily hold his own in a fight but it just wasn’t _necessary_ right now and would only serve to cause even more trouble for them than they were already dealing with on a daily basis. Instead of indulging like Michael, Jeremy pulled himself from the crowd and watched with fascination as the mob was swarmed by guards with guns; barely a deterrent at all, since they didn’t usually open fire without at least trying to diffuse the situation first. That was probably the only good thing that could be said of the guards in this shithole.

In his annoyance at all of this. Jeremy did spare a glance over at the building Michael had suggested he worm his way into through the chaos. Sure enough, the show going on over here had drawn all of the nearby guards away from their posts. Their jobs were endlessly boring and all of them were desperate for a little bit of action just like this.

The unguarded doors were too tempting for Jeremy to turn down.

Cursing all the way and constantly throwing looks over his shoulder to ensure all of the prison guards were still too distracted to notice his game plan, Jeremy powered on towards those huge metal doors and shoved them open with his eyes shut tight. If he was caught fucking around like this, who knew what might happen. Anything from extra jobs to a longer sentence. The last option was completely unacceptable to him and if Michael threw him in the deep end like that then Jeremy swore to himself that he would kill that fucker. Was it technically Michael’s fault that he had gone through with such a ridiculous plan? Not at all. Jeremy couldn’t care less in the moment. If he had even so much as a month added on to his three years over this, Jeremy was going to throttle Michael for it.

Surely Michael knew that, though. There was no reason for him to send Jeremy off on a pointless quest knowing that he would gain nothing from it but a brand new enemy. That could only mean one thing.

The proof he had insisted on showing to Jeremy was real, and it was here. It was worth the risk.

When he saw what secret awaited him inside the storage unit, Jeremy was transported immediately to who he had been a lifetime ago, when the news of the prison fire was just breaking.

> _“Gavin Free, known notoriously as the Golden Boy of the criminal gang ‘The Fakes’, is confirmed to have died in the LS prison fire.”_
> 
> _And the whole world stood still. Or at least, that’s how it felt to Jeremy, who almost dropped his coffee and couldn’t keep his eyes off of the news report reeling on the tiny TV screen. Matt had frozen in place too, mid-way through counting out quite a pitiful score from their most recent gas-station hit._
> 
> _“Official confirmation states the Golden Boy perished in the fire, which began in the early hours of this morning. It’s not yet clear whether this was a result of arson or – or some kind of technical fault. Somebody’s got an awful lot of questions to answer here.”_
> 
> _The news reporters carried on like that, entering some debate style discussion about whether or not Gavin Free should have been held there at all or killed by execution in the first place, but there was little point in listening to them anymore. Gavin’s mugshot was up on the screen, and it wasn’t the first time that Jeremy had seen it but it was the first time he had really looked. The Golden Boy, burnt and gone._
> 
> _“Dude,” Matt uttered under his breath, bringing Jeremy back into the room from whatever strange trance Gavin’s picture, and the thought that he was dead, had put him into. “Shit…”_
> 
> _“Yeah,” was all Jeremy could think to say._
> 
> _Gavin Free was different from most people in this fucked up business. To look at, he wasn’t at all intimidating and as far as anyone knew, he was a pretty useless shot too. He didn’t have any kind of expert knowledge in explosives or weapons, wasn’t the greatest getaway driver, and though he flew well one would hardly label him a sought after pilot. He had something else. Something far more valuable, that had made him the Fakes most precious asset for years now._
> 
> _He had information. Gavin knew something about everything, everyone. Typically, he knew the one thing you would hate for him to know, and he played with it coyly like it wasn’t his most powerful trait. They said he could convince a man to jump off of a building over a cup of coffee. Always, Gavin got more than he gave and somehow left his clients feeling perfectly satisfied with the negotiations he thrived in. Men and women would walk away from a meeting with the Golden Boy feeling on top of the world, and then watch all that they had promised him crumble around them, leave them with nothing. His words had toppled criminal empires. It was because of him that the Fakes were as prestigiously revered as they were today. Without him, Jeremy wondered how they would plan to stay afloat._
> 
> _One thing was for certain, there would never be another like Gavin._
> 
> _“We oughtta lay low for a while…” Matt said, drawing a confused frown from Jeremy. Any business with the Fakes was leaps and bounds above their pay grade. He couldn’t see why this should impact them so much. “I’ll bet any money Ramsey’s about to rain down hell on this city, and I sure as fuck don’t wanna be mid-heist when he does.”_
> 
> _The explanation made an awful lot of sense. It made Jeremy damn grateful that he had Matt, always thinking four steps ahead of the situation and keeping him on his guard._
> 
> _“What do you think they’ll do?” He found himself asking before he had really considered the question himself. The Fakes were undeniably vulnerable without their key player. If Jeremy and Matt were a larger, more threatening force, they would doubtlessly take advantage of this opening on them; he could only imagine how many crews were planning to stage their own hits on the Fakes right at that very second._
> 
> _“Who knows, man,” Matt frowned, back to counting dollar bills now. The deeply contemplative look on his face gave Jeremy some cause for concern, but he didn’t mention it. “Ramsey usually figures something out.”_
> 
> _“Free usually figures something out.” Jeremy corrected him, and it made Matt chuckle softly because yeah, that was certainly true. They had lost the most creative heist planner to ever live._
> 
> _“Well whatever they’re gonna do next, I don’t want a damn thing to do with it.” Matt settled, and Jeremy didn’t even have to think before he responded._
> 
> _“Damn straight,” he laughed, and got back to his coffee without another word._

He was almost impossible to recognise at first, sitting cross-legged and relaxed on a solitary bed placed right in the middle of what could only be described as a cage. Tall, iron bars stretching to cover the centre of the room, keeping him firmly enclosed. In the orange of his prison-issued overalls, he was indistinguishable from any of the other punks out there on the courtyard right now. But he was here, and that had to mean something.

Jeremy took a curious step closer and almost choked on his own sharp intake of breath.

In the the right light, there were flashes of bottle-blond in his light brown hair. His face was hollower now and a short, scruffy beard lie where once perfectly maintained stubble had been. But there was just no doubt about it. Even without his infamous golden sunglasses.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Gavin said, Gavin Free said to Jeremy, and he wished he’d never met Michael fucking Jones because now he was so totally fucked. So much for the easy three-year jail stint he had been working so goddamn hard for. Instead, here he was with nothing but a couple of feet and some metal bars separating him from a member of the most infamous gang in the city. A member of the Fakes who, according to the prison, had tragically died over a year ago in a freak fire beyond their control. A member who Ramsey, the Kingpin, had vowed to avenge.

So before he could dig himself any deeper into this utter mess, Jeremy spun on his heel and made for the door. Was he intrigued? Of course. Did Gavin have an immediate allure that made him want to stay, to know his story and find out more? Absolutely. Was any of that worth putting himself in the firing line of not only the prison system, but also a notorious and deadly criminal gang? Doubtlessly not.

But apparently, Jeremy was already much too late to get out of this so easily.

“Oh come on,” Gavin sighed, stopping Jeremy in his tracks. To deny him was probably a surer death sentence than staying and facing the consequence. “It’s not often I get to see a new face.”

Ridiculously, he had to gulp down a terrible fear before turning to face Gavin again. “Look man, I don’t want any trouble.”

He laughed at that. _Laughed_. It was a light and chilling sound, like gold on silver. “He says to the man in a cage.”

“To the _Golden Boy_ ,” Jeremy bit back and regretted it immediately, but Gavin only scoffed at his logic.

“Please. I’m far from my golden days now,” there was a harshness in his tone there that made Jeremy’s blood run cold. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Who are you?” He asked, smooth and innocent.

No way in hell was Jeremy about to surrender his identity to Gavin. It would be his most powerful tool against him so he was hardly enthusiastic about handing it over. He was already here, and that was bad enough. Best not fall any further down the rabbit hole. “I thought you were supposed to know everything about everyone.”

Unfortunately though, Gavin caught Jeremy’s deflection between his teeth and smiled around it, leaning forward with a splitting grin. It gave Jeremy his first proper look at Gavin’s face. This in turn made him realise just how fucked he already was, long before either of them had even spoken a word. The burnt scarring surrounding Gavin’s eye told Jeremy he had been a dead man by association the second he smiled at Michael Jones.

The scars were raw, an ugly rippling of red, ripped skin curling its way from the top of his ear to cover Gavin’s right eye. Some of those scars clawed up the side of his neck too. They snaked their way down below his collar so that Jeremy could only imagine the kind of damage those prison clothes were hiding.

Damage done by Michael fucking Jones. The guy with no notable friends or allies. None aside from Jeremy of course.

“How much intel do you think a dead man locked in a box can really get?” Gavin was asking, but Jeremy was still coming to terms with the fact that his prison buddy had permanently scarred Ramsey’s most valuable asset. He had turned the Golden Boy molten and Michael must have been nothing more than a dead man walking at this point. Shamelessly, Michael was drowning and pulling Jeremy below the surface with him. He could only blame himself for being too stupid to notice. Maybe, Jeremy thought, if he killed Michael himself then the Fakes might even consider it a favour.

Before he could pay much thought to it though, Jeremy had to take an impulsive step closer to Gavin. He had seen something shift in the light. A glint of gold. And sure enough, in the socket surrounded by scarring, Gavin was sporting an appropriately golden eye.

“Not so far from your golden days after all…” Jeremy thought aloud, hoping that perhaps by some miracle Gavin hadn’t heard. Judging by his languid smile, he definitely had.

“I think the guards were trying to mock me,” he chuckled. “But I honestly quite like it. It reminds me of home.” Bitterly, Jeremy recalled Michael saying something similar about the lighter he had used to cause this mess in the first place. The painful irony of that though, he decided to keep to himself.

“I need to go,” Jeremy said, hoping he had stayed long enough to appease Gavin. Wasn’t it the most pathetic thing, awaiting permission from a man locked in a cage to leave a room he never should have entered in the first place? Jeremy tried not to dwell on it.

“Is he here then?” Gavin asked by way of permitting him his leave, but leaving Jeremy momentarily confused. He clarified in a sing-song voice. “Fredy-doo?”

It was such a ridiculous way to refer to Diaz, a man known for his sharp shots and no-survivors, that Jeremy could have laughed. He _did_ laugh in fact, and because he was laughing, talking felt so easy. “Yeah, he’s here.”

The delighted surprise that crossed Gavin’s face made Jeremy’s heart stop. He hadn’t known that Alfredo was here. Jeremy had told him. He had fed the Golden Boy important information that he never would have had without their meeting today, and who knew what that would set in motion. This time there was no Michael to blame. Gavin had tricked him into spilling without even trying and now –

“Jeremy!” Michael’s voice called. Naturally, he turned to the sound.

“Thank you, Jeremy,” Gavin said, holding his name like it was some sinister secret; which of course it had been until now.

As Jeremy raced back to the courtyard to throttle Michael Jones, he knew that now, they were just as fucked as each other.


	3. Molten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter really got away from me length wise, so i've split it up! enjoy part 1 <3

Diaz would be transported today, or so the whispers said.

Less than a month since he arrived here and the prison had already pulled the funds out of their ass to build a whole new, maximum security segregation unit for him and him alone. Jeremy couldn’t help but wonder where that kind of quick spending enthusiasm had been when he spent the entirety of his first week here waiting for the showers to be fixed, but hey ho. The Fake’s best shooter was moving and the excitement tasted sour in the air.

Jeremy had thought about Gavin and the Fakes every day since he came face to face with the Golden Boy. They were lucky as hell not to be caught snooping around in the storage unit where Gavin was hidden, and luckier still to face the bare minimum punishment for their inciting of an underplayed fight in the courtyard, but Jeremy had still been on edge about it ever since. Michael too. That moron hadn’t even known the extent of the shit he was in until Jeremy had told him about Gavin’s facial scarring and golden eye. He’d been totally oblivious to the weight of his actions. Michael, like a handful of other prisoners, had only ever caught glimpses of Gavin through the closing doors. His being alive seemed to be one poorly kept secret (who would believe a bunch of convicts over the US prison system anyway) but nobody knew that Gavin had actually been hurt in that fire. Michael had fallen so pale when he was told that Jeremy thought he might actually have died on the spot. If he had, it might save everyone an awful lot of trouble.

So both Michael and Jeremy had been keeping their heads down recently. Holding their breath around every corner. Of all the low-lives in this jail, they were quite possibly the only pair of losers who _didn’t_ want to see Alfredo Diaz on his move today.

Naturally then, they ran right into him.

No one had thought to mention to them that the courtyard would be locked off today for the transportation. They had been unlocked like any other day, and innocent as anything , made their way through the open doors and long hallways to commence their regular ‘pick up shit’ duties; only to be barked at and shoved back from whence they came. Offered zero explanation from the irate guards as to what the big deal was, Jeremy had to wonder how they had made it this far in the first place. Why were the guards who had given them the order allowing them to go alone, appearing so hesitant and conflicted over whether or not they could abandon this meaningless post by the doors? Why was it so immediately imperative that they get back to their wings? It wasn’t as if the escort with the highest security prisoner in history would be waiting around the corner, Michael had joked.

And Jeremy had laughed but sure enough, when they rounded that corner, there he was.

Up close, Alfredo Diaz had a glare of such immense intimidation that took it your breath away. Left you feeling winded. Or maybe, Jeremy thought, that breathless sensation might just as well have come from the arsenal of weapons that were immediately pointed his way by the gang of paranoid guards. Michael and Jeremy were absolutely not supposed to be in their way. By all accounts, it looked like an ambush. Startled and frenzied, the guards’ fingers twitched over triggers. Jeremy was throwing his hands up in a defensive stance in an instant, desperately scrambling to explain that they didn’t want any trouble, this was a terrible mistake, and they were just two unarmed men on their way back to their wings. But the guards shouted over him, screamed over each other until there wasn’t a distinguishable word amongst the utter chaos. ‘Get down’ Jeremy thought he might have heard and so he rushed to follow said order. Michael sunk to his knees too a few moments after, unfazed by the order and merely following Jeremy because right now it seemed, the guards were the least of _his_ worries.

For whatever reason, Diaz was staring right at him.

Michael was locked in some kind of trance and Jeremy almost fell victim to it too until screeching from the guards brought him back.

“Names! You hear me, you fucks? Names!” It seemed the leader of their pack had regained his control after the initial panic, because he was the only one yelling now. His uniform declared him as a higher ranking officer, but he had been just as frantic as his colleagues mere moments ago. Pathetic as it was, Jeremy had to feign respect for him. He was on the wrong side of the gun to be anything other than totally compliant.

“Jeremy Dooley,” he said, hands still raised while he waited for Michael to spit out his own name too. The silence was deafening. “Michael Jones,” Jeremy offered, cutting off the head guard right in the middle of loading up another scream which he didn’t seem best pleased about, but he had gotten what he wanted.

Alfredo had heard Michael’s name and adopted an interest that was so expressive he may as well have been holding out a hand to the guy. Michael was frozen in place under his gaze. Without hearing what instruction had been given, Jeremy was being hoisted to his feet none too gently.

And while this was happening, Jeremy witnessed three simultaneous, terrible events.

First, Alfredo grinned. Sinister enough on its own, but of course it couldn’t end so simply as that. He had smiled with purpose, revealing a single wooden match stick between his teeth. As quickly as he had shown it, he let it fall.

Second, as Michael was being lifted up from the floor by his own guard, he reached for that match and picked it up.

And the final thing, perhaps the most terrible, came from the tall, black haired guard assigned to Michael, who had witnessed the entire exchange. Instead of confiscating that match, blowing the whistle, raising the alarm before this could go any further, he simply looked to Alfredo. He looked at Michael. He looked at Jeremy. And he nodded.

Just like that, Jeremy was thrusted straight into something impossibly bigger than his three year stint in jail was ever supposed to bring.

\---

That night, things got decidedly worse.

Michael and Jeremy had been escorted (more like dragged, but he wouldn’t be pedantic) straight back to their cells without a chance to say a word to one another. He couldn’t speak for what had happened to Michael, but Jeremy had remained locked up all day long after his incident with the Fake. Even during dinner service and social hours, no one had come to unlock his door. Jeremy hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. This kind of treatment would have driven him crazy if there weren’t so much to think about.

Surely there was still a way out of all this. If Jeremy could effectively cut Michael off and keep to himself as much as possible, pretending like he didn’t have the slightest clue and hopefully surviving whatever his ex-prison buddy was about to do with that fateful matchstick, then surely he could walk on out of here in three years’ time just like he was supposed to. Return to Matt and to life as he knew it.

The knock on his cell door that came far too late at night told him that a normal life was no longer an option.

Swiftly unlocking his door was the black haired guard from before, the one who had shared an uncomfortably knowing look with Diaz mere inches from Jeremy’s face, surely here to deliver terrible news about his fate.

“Come,” he said, short and sharp. Not having it in him to argue, and admittedly a little curious as to how horribly this all had to end for him, Jeremy silently slipped on his shoes and followed the guard out. They didn’t share another word until they were safely out of earshot of anyone else; heading it seemed towards the courtyard. Strange, but Jeremy didn’t question it. He thought better of speaking unless spoken to, given the gravity of his position right now.

“Michael Jones,” the man said after a moment. He looked pissed, but about what Jeremy wasn’t yet sure. Best to tread carefully, then. “You know him well?”

“No,” Jeremy lied. It was a knee-jerk reaction, dreading the thought of being too heavily associated with Michael if it meant he was in trouble with the Fakes. “I mean, kinda. We met here. We’re not… friends.”

“Do you trust him?” that question seemed a little more urgent. There was one last door separating them from the courtyard, and the guard had stopped at it, refusing to unlock it until he got an answer. The silence created an uncomfortable rush of adrenaline, with nowhere to run.

“About as far as I could throw him,” Jeremy said after a moment, and it was the truth.

With a disgruntled mumble, the guard continued on their little journey. It only took a short stroll across the courtyard for Jeremy to predict the destination and for a moment he moved totally on autopilot. The adrenaline that had spiked in him earlier was insistent, telling him it was now or never, that he had to either knock this guy the fuck out or make a break for it and hope for the damn best. By the time he had decided that he could probably take the other man in a fist fight if he didn’t give him time to reach for his gun, it was too late anyway. Already, the guard was unlocking the doors to what days ago had appeared as a totally unassuming storage unit, but what Jeremy now knew was so much more sinister than that.

They made their way towards Gavin’s cage-like cell totally unchallenged. Once he had built the courage to look around, Jeremy found every one of the Golden Boy’s personal guards out cold in their seats, some of them still loosely keeping hold of the cups of water which he could only assume carried the culprit of their collective loss of consciousness.

“Trevor,” Gavin purred happily, lounging in a cat like stretch on the bed. “You’ve been ages. Could have at least left me _one_ of ‘em to chat to.”

“No I couldn’t,” the guard, Trevor, told him without humour. “And keep your voice down. I gave them sleeping pills, not tranquilisers.”

“Whatever,” Gavin yawned, seemingly uninterested; until he spotted Jeremy that is. His smile, while still somewhat languidly placed across his face, grew a little more eager. “Well. Michael Jones certainly looks different these days.”

Trevor sighed, a sound of irritation rather than exhaustion. “I couldn’t get Michael out. Too risky. This is – “

“Jeremy,” Gavin interrupted, looking mighty proud of himself at the absolutely dumbfounded expression Trevor gave in response. “We’ve met.” Inexplicably, he _winked_.

Jeremy kept on holding his breath until he realised both sets of eyes in the room were pointed his way. The gold in Gavin’s made his blood run cold. “Whatever this is,” he said, thankfully sounding more certain of himself than he felt. “I don’t want any part of it.”

As though the prospect of continuing on without Jeremy was somehow heart-breaking, Gavin frowned. “That’s a shame. I don’t even get the chance to convince you?”

“No thanks,” Jeremy said, stern as ever but feeling like he might be out of the loop here. Gavin was completely undeterred, unshaken by his refusal to engage. He was hit with the overwhelming feeling that everybody in this room, drugged prison guards and all, knew something that he didn’t. Through stories and whispers, Jeremy had heard that Gavin had a way of hijacking people’s minds and breaking them down like this, but he hadn’t believed it fully until it was happening.

“Well,” Gavin hummed, rising slowly from his position on the bed. It was a simple movement, but it seemed to offset the mood of the entire room. Even Trevor was frowning uncomfortably. “Given that the door behind you is locked, how would you plan to leave? Trevor has the keys. He works for me.”

“I work _with_ you. Not for you,” Trevor bit, but Gavin hardly seemed fazed.

“Technicalities.” He shrugged, keeping his attention totally fixed on Jeremy. “So what’s your next move? Are you going to stay, and hear me out? Maybe you’ll try to fight him.” He glanced briefly to Trevor, amusement in his eyes. “Though I wouldn’t really recommend it. He’s quite quick and, well, Trevor’s the one with the gun, right?” Delighted with his own words, Gavin gave a little chuckle and leant lazily against the bars of his cell. “So? What happens next, Jeremy? I’m dying to know.”

Instead of answering, Jeremy stood firmly still and stared at Gavin. He tried to be subtle about gulping down his fear, but figured that even if he could hide it, his eyes would give him away completely. This was the last place on planet Earth he wanted to be, and he could tell that Gavin knew it.

“Good,” Gavin nodded, after relaxing in the silence for a while and enjoying his victory. “Tomorrow you’re going to give Michael a message for me. I’d like you to let him know that the match Alfredo gave him is _very_ important; it should be my ticket out of here. If you play your cards right, it might even be yours too.” Uninterested in that as he was, Jeremy was listening. “He could probably see that there would be little he could do to cause chaos from whatever awful hole they’re holding him in right now. I can’t think of a better arsonist for the job than Michael Jones… Fredy’s not usually the brains behind the operation, you see, but he has his moments.” This seemed to make him quite happy, his expression falling loose and fond for a moment in a way that almost made Jeremy relax. Gavin was snatching back the peace as soon as he had granted it. “At around midnight, I need Michael to set a fire. It’ll need to be much bigger than the last one. Trevor here will leave both of your doors unlocked, so you’ll be able to get out just fine when the time comes. In the chaos that Michael will cause, Trevor will be able to unlock Alfredo and I, and once that happens we wait for the getaway. You’ll know it when you see it.”

This was a devastating rush of information to receive all at once, and Jeremy found himself feeling a little light-headed at the prospect. It seemed like no matter what he did from here, he would be caught in the cross fire one way or another. If he didn’t pass the information to Michael, Trevor would get close enough to do so himself. Jeremy would probably perish in the fire if that was the case, so it was probably in his best interest to just do as he was told and maybe walk away from this alive, if not a free man. That was the worst case scenario.

The best, he realised, was breaking out of this joint alive and well with the Fake AH Crew on his side. That was one hell of an idea.

Was Gavin tricking him into wishful thinking? Possibly. Would he end up nothing but ashes once this was through? Probably. Jeremy wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice here, though. Live with the Fakes or die in a shitty little prison cell. He knew which one he liked better.

Apparently Gavin had said all he needed to say, as the next time Jeremy remembered to speak the golden boy was already stretching out in his bed again. Lamely, Jeremy piped up anyway. “How the fuck can you expect Michael pull that off with one lousy match?”

Gavin was unhappy with this, and that was dangerous. “He’ll figure it out. Look at what he did to me with just one lousy lighter.”

That put a decided end to the conversation, and even if it didn’t, Trevor was already unlocking the door and waiting impatiently for Jeremy to make his way out; which he did, if a little reluctant to leave things with Gavin on such a sour note. That probably wouldn’t bode well for his future prospects of, you know, survival.

“Jeremy,” Gavin’s voice stopped him in his tracks one last time. When he glanced back at the cell, he would find Gavin lying comfortably in bed and facing away from them, calm as ever despite the threat he was laying. “Tell Michael if he fucks this up, I’ll kill him myself.”

\---

Passing this information on to Michael the next day had Jeremy feeling as though he were sealing his fate. He thought of all the stories he had heard, spoken like mythical legends over whiskey on the rocks in dingy bars, whispered as dangerous secrets over back alley deals, all of them about the Golden Boy and his silver tongue. They said that Gavin had once convinced a man to shoot himself in the head over a five minute conversation. He had heard that Gavin once sweet talked classified agency secrets from an FBI official in a bar, and that was how the Fakes had evaded capture for years, even when the press knew most of their names and faces already. Mainly though, he remembered that in all of these stories, Gavin could make anything he asked you to do seem like the most important thing in the world. If you didn’t sit down when the Golden Boy asked you to, you may as well have stabbed him in the fucking back then and there. Denying him anything at all stung like the worst kind of betrayal.

Jeremy didn’t even think _that_ did him justice. All that Gavin had ordered him to do felt urgent, yes, but more so than the stories might have convinced him it would be. It wasn’t just important. It was life or death.

And without Gavin here to communicate it quite as smoothly as only he seemed able to do, Jeremy was having a pretty rough time convincing Michael just how serious he was.

“This is fucking _insane_ ,” the red head was laughing, practically vibrating with glee in a way that made Jeremy anxious. Subtlety was absolutely lost on Michael Jones. At least he was on board, far more so than Jeremy had been at any point of the operation so far, but it almost felt like this was trivial to the other man. He had to make it damn clear this was not about to be a walk in the park.

“Yeah it is.” Jeremy said, a hard frown on his face in spite of Michael’s glee. “So be serious about it, man.”

“Lighten up,” Michael insisted, still infuriatingly relaxed. Jeremy had half a mind to actually hit him but he knew he was just anxious about the night. It was no use at all getting both of them into any kind of trouble that might be a detriment to the plan that he wanted no part of, but had to get right anyway. “I’ve never seen you get so fucking hung up on anything. I mean, you’ve always been a little touchy,” yeah, maybe Jeremy would beat the shit out of him. “But come on. You got a personal fuckin’ invite to the _Fakes_ ; from their Golden Boy!”

“That’s not what happened at all,” Jeremy tried to protest, but Michael (master of interruptions) was already talking over him.

“Yes the fuck it is.” A guard made the rounds past the two of them then, eyeing them rather suspiciously but no more so than the kind of attention the two of them would usually attract. Michael had a name for himself, after all, and nobody very much liked that he had found himself a new buddy in Jeremy. It made him less than trustworthy, getting involved with Michael. It also put a bright _gold_ target on his head, and if he had known that at the time, Jeremy definitely would have worked harder to get this guy to fuck off away from his lunch table. Alas, here he was. Deeper into this shit than he ever could have imagined.

“He said he’d kill you.” Jeremy said in a whisper, thanking God that Michael had quietened down to accommodate their company. “If you fuck this up…”

“Tell me something I don’t know, dude,” he scoffed in response. “My neck was always on the line. Known that since you told me how his face got fucked up in the fire…” that was the most contemplative and serious Jeremy thought he had ever seen Michael get. “They’re giving me a chance here, I know that. So relax about it.”

It was enough to appease Jeremy for now, but not enough to stop the shaking in his hands.


	4. Ash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 2 of the big finale <3 one more to go... enjoy!

The day lasted an eternity and by the time dinner was served, Jeremy was already completely exhausted from the panic of it all. He had eaten whatever he could stomach and continued his painful waiting game. Minutes were hours. Every set of footsteps outside the door made his heart rate spike with the thought that this could be the moment. A couple of hours after the sun dipped below the horizon, once the wing had quietened down and Jeremy could only assume (because actually checking the time felt far too worrisome) that they weren’t far off from the fire now, he slipped an old letter out from underneath his bed.

Throughout his prison sentence, Jeremy had only ever received one letter from ‘home’; and even that, he hadn’t expected. Without a family to call his own, it was something of a mystery who might be writing him before he opened it, and found nothing more than one page with messy, scrawled script that made him smile. Matt Bragg was a shitty person, but damn if he wasn’t a good friend.

_J,_

_Hope you like prison food. I’m thinking of you over a delicious chocolate iced donut that I bought with money from your last score. Feels bad, man._

_I got enough solo jobs lined up to last me a while, but we’re gonna have some serious work to do when you’re out of there. I’ll make some connections out here. You keep your fucking head down, okay? Don’t do anything stupid._

_Alfredo fucking Diaz got caught last night, dude. The Fakes are totally fucked right now, the cops are running circles around them, and there’s a gap in the… market, I guess? Probably won’t last long, but I’ll see what deals I can pull with the big guys. Hit ‘em while they’re weak, and all that._

_Anyway, you just lay low. Three years will fly by. See you on the out._

_M.B_

It was a painfully ironic message to read over now. Jeremy almost felt like saying ‘sorry buddy’ to the air, but it felt like such a stupid cliché. Genuinely, there was an element of guilt at play in his panic. If he died here tonight, the thought of Matt making his own way in the criminal underworld of this fucking city was pretty damning. It would be a death sentence for him too, and that was devastating. But then even if Jeremy did make it out, in the extremely unlikely scenario that this all went swimmingly and he was disappearing into the night with the Fakes by his side in a couple hours’ time, where did Matt come into all of that? How was he supposed to convince the most notorious gang in the city (who by the way Matt, were very much _not_ fucked, and in fact had one more member than the world had thought they had in the presumed dead but awfully alive Gavin Free) to adopt not only his sorry ass, but also his low-life partner in crime? It was totally implausible. It was ridiculous. And before Jeremy had even another second to contemplate it, the tell-tale click of keys in his cell door sounded. Ready or not, the night was on.

Trevor had unlocked his door, that much was certain, but he hadn’t said a word before taking his leave and that made Jeremy hesitate. With his letter from Matt safely tucked away in a pocket and his shoes on, he was itching to go. There was only so much time one man could spend contemplating his chances of survival before growing impatient. Feeling utterly uncertain, Jeremy remained on the bed. Sat upright with his fists clenched at his sides, teeth grinding anxiously in waiting. Was he supposed to await some kind of sign? Some distant alarms sounded, but that was hardly out of the ordinary in a place like this. The wings were never completely silent, always carrying echoed cries and numbed bells signalling that somebody or other was causing issues tonight. Jeremy had grown accustomed to the chorus of prison nights. So when would something different happen? Something that would confirm the plan was in action?

He spent too long like this. Michael must have fucked it up. Maybe the plan was all a convoluted lie, some kind of fucked up test of his will. Perhaps there was a whole squad of prison guards armed to the teeth and waiting for Jeremy to even dare setting foot out that door. As far as he knew, Trevor was just another officer. The only evidence he had to the contrary came from Gavin fucking Free, world renowned _liar_.

And then, right when Jeremy felt about ready to call it a night on any dreams of fires and escape, a far louder alarm started to ring with great urgency. There was panic in the halls. Voices Jeremy recognised as the officers assigned to his wing, then some he couldn’t place. Then there were footsteps; running. Past his cell and down the length of the wing. Questions, rushed and nervous, about evacuation plans and if this had ever happened before; how it had happened _now_. ‘Jones’, he heard someone say, and knew it was real.

Confident that the guards were far off, Jeremy took one last look at his shitty little prison bed before he slipped out of the unlocked door. He wondered if that was the last bed he would ever sleep in; what a damn shame if it was. Without dwelling on it, he took his leave. The industrial door that usually stood firmly locked at the end of the wing was wide open; whether it was left that way accidentally in the panic or deliberately by Trevor, Jeremy didn’t know. Either way, it was his only escape route, and it was clear.

Well. ‘Clear’ might not have been the best word. Open and unguarded yes, but the smoke filtering in from that hallway was so thick that Jeremy wasn’t sure he’d survive the inhalation if he tried to power through it. No time for second-guessing now though. Deciding that he would much rather die in a dramatic escape attempt than burning alive pathetically in his cell, Jeremy dragged in a deep breath while he still could and stepped out into the worst of it. No going back. Much as the fire safety videos from his school days had warned him, this smoke was so black that he couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. The worst type of smoke to breathe in, if he was recalling that correctly. No matter. He would just have to rely on memory to get him out of here, and Jeremy felt pretty confident in the route. Mostly confident. Maybe about 60% certain.

It wasn’t enough to bet his life on and in the end, a gasp for air tore through him on his blind journey and ripped him apart. His body needed to cough in response, and violently at that. But there wasn’t enough clean air to do even that. The smoke had crawled right to the back of his throat. In a moment of weakness, Jeremy felt his legs collapse beneath him, hands coming up to wrap around his throat while he gagged for the oxygen that he couldn’t find in the air. For a couple of seconds, he couldn’t think of anything at all besides _breathing, I can’t breathe, I need to breathe._ Then he started to wonder if he really would die here.

And at what he thought might be his final moment of clarity, Jeremy saw Michael. His shape at least, in the air around him. He just about had the consciousness to question if this was real when he felt hands at his shoulders, dragging him from this place. His eyes were just about ready to close, when they saw moon and stars. He might have been about to draw his last breath, but instead, suffered an assault in the form of a sputtering of rough coughs and gags. Later, Jeremy would know he owed Michael his life tonight. There on the courtyard though, as he choked on fresh air, he almost wished he could have just died in the prison halls and let this all be over.

Michael was coughing too, though not nearly as aggressively as Jeremy. Tentatively (which was an odd way to see Michael do anything), he was making some effort to move Jeremy away from the burning building and the offending smoke that was making even the fresh air of the night seem heavy in their lungs.

“Gotta move,” he told Jeremy weakly, rising to his feet and making Jeremy realise for the first time that the both of them were on their knees. Barely recovered, he rose too. “Gotta keep moving.”

He nodded, suffering what he hoped was the last of his dry heaves and starting up a weak run by Michael’s side. They didn’t stop until they had some level of cover, ducked behind Gavin’s secret storage unit, though Jeremy didn’t notice it immediately. He was distracted, because now that they were far enough from the jails main body, Jeremy got his first real look at the extent of what Michael had done.

One entire wing was completely ablaze. The flames had bled over into the central building, climbing high above the top floor and dancing at the edges of what it hadn’t yet devoured. Any part of the building untouched by fire was flooded with the thick, black smoke that had almost killed Jeremy just moments ago. There were bodies crawling out from every exit, like ants skittering out of the ground. Few of them made it far enough away before they dropped, and Jeremy knew he would have been one of them, those men in breathless piles on the floor.

All of that from one little match. Jeremy had no idea how Michael had done it, and he didn’t have time to ask him either, because while he had been so mesmerised watching the main prison burn the fire and smoke had caught up with them. Flames licked up the edge of the container they used for cover, and Jeremy noticed for the first time where they actually were.

“Jeremy,” Michael was calling him, his voice still thick with the recent attack on their throats. “Jeremy! What do we do?” He was desperate. The fire was taking hold of the container in seconds. They had to get away, and fast.

“Trevor got him, right? Gavin’s out?” Neither of them believed it. Before Jeremy could say another word on that matter, Michael was pushing open the unlocked doors. “Michael!” He was screaming, his throat protesting angrily at the feeling, but this was far too much. It seemed terrifying, so ridiculous to run into a building that was collapsing under fire by the second, but both of them knew that walking away from here without Gavin Free was not an option. They would die trying to save him, and they would be killed for leaving him behind. Braver than Jeremy, or maybe just stupider, Michael had taken the first action. He had decided how they would perish, and Jeremy would be damned if he wasn’t going to follow him.

Stepping into the storage unit, they were hit with a blast of heat that was momentarily debilitating. This thing was like an oven, channelling an overwhelming heat from the fire and baking whatever was inside it. The air was heavy and hard to breathe, but fortunately for them they were still far from the worst of it. With a single guard left standing, Gavin was still locked up in his cage, and he would die there if they didn’t act fast. Jeremy looked at him, and saw a genuine fear in his eyes that felt like an awful breach of his privacy.

“Stay the fuck back!” The guard was yelling, fumbling to grab for his gun and clearly more terrified than anybody else. That was probably good. Jeremy imagined he was a new guy. First day on the ‘guarding the Golden Boy’ job and you have to decide whether to let him go or watch him burn to death? Pretty rough call. Luckily, Michael and Jeremy were here to take that decision right from him.

Without deliberating and in perfect unison, as though they had done this together before, they were charging the poor guy. Michael twisted his gun arm until it snapped, grabbing the weapon for himself while Jeremy held him in a firm head lock. Now that the weapon was safely out of his hands, Michael disarmed him of his keys too. The whole time, Jeremy could practically feel Gavin’s eyes on them. With a swift and hard knock to the side of the head with the barrel of the gun (which Jeremy didn’t see as entirely necessary given that the dude was hardly fighting back anymore), Michael knocked him out and rushed to Gavin’s cell. He fumbled, trying a few of the keys in shaking hands, leading Gavin to calmly reach through the bars and show him the correct one. It made Michael go pale, but they didn’t have time to be star struck. That deep and foreboding black cloud was forming, the room was getting hotter by the second, and Gavin wasn’t looking so strong right now. He had been in here under this heat for a long time, after all. By the time Michael got him out of there, Gavin was slumping forwards so dangerously that Michael had to catch him before he fell.

“Shit! Gavin!” He yelled, hoisting him up and trying to shake the life back into him. With panic rushing through his veins, Jeremy rushed to assist. Gavin’s head rolled for a moment and Jeremy had an awful thought that it might be over, but his eyes began to open. Michael shivered in the burning room when that one golden eye caught the light. They had to keep moving.

“Bloody hell,” Gavin complained, sounding groggy and drained. “Get me out, boys…”

Knowing better than to make him ask twice, and eager to make their escape anyway, Michael and Jeremy draped one arm each over their shoulders and all but carried Gavin past the flames, back out into the open air. Anything could have been waiting for them here, but they were fortunate enough that the guards seemed totally preoccupied with the chaos in the main body of the jail for now. The Golden Boy was a commodity, forgotten about and left to burn. Jeremy thought that might make him feel quite sour, but weak as Gavin was, he probably wasn’t thinking much of anything right now.

On an impulse that he simply couldn’t ignore, Jeremy pushed all of Gavin’s weight onto Michael and turned back for the burning building. It was cruel and unnecessary, leaving the downed guard in there to burn alive.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Michael protested, but that wasn’t what stopped him.

“Jeremy,” Gavin said, soft, smooth and impossible to ignore. “Leave the dead to die. You ought to learn that now.”

There was something so ominously poignant in his words that Jeremy could only stare. That could mean a great many things. One of them, and probably the most terrifying prospect, was that Gavin readily expected Jeremy to kill and die for him now. It’s what he had signed himself up for, running like a mad man into a building on fire just to rescue him. But in all honesty, Jeremy had never killed a man, and it made him feel a little sick that the next time he spared a glance at Gavin’s old storage unit, the roof was collapsing in on itself.

“Where do we go?” Michael asked, frantic. He looked to Jeremy for answers, as though either of them had more of a clue than the other.“We can’t just stand around here like a bunch’a fuckin’ morons!”

“I know that!” Jeremy yelled back, incensed by Michael’s aggression and trying to work out what the next step was in this chaotic plan. Gavin had told him to wait for something. ‘You’ll know it when you see it’. Frankly, all he saw in every direction was certain fucking death, and irritatingly Gavin hardly seemed concerned in the slightest.

“That,” the Golden Boy hummed, finding his feet beneath him again, but still leaning heavily on his two saviours for support. “Is a lot more than I bargained for.”

The fire, which Gavin was seeing for the first time, was raging.

“You asked for a fire. I delivered,” Michael mumbled, sounding as though he was just a little uncertain of himself here. He had probably expected Gavin to be impressed. As it was, he only seemed a little bit surprised.

“Thank you, Michael,” he said, and it made Michael smile. Golden Boy, silver tongue. “I hope you haven’t killed him. Fredo, I mean.”

At the jolt of shock that charged through Michael, he very nearly dropped Gavin to the ground. He found his composure fast enough, though he didn’t dare open his mouth again after that.

“So what now?” Jeremy asked, bringing them back around to the matter of either their imminent escape or collective demise. It did make his blood run cold, the thought that the Fake’s most valuable shooter might have burned tonight, but there was the slightly more pressing issue of his own survival taking charge.

“Gun,” Gavin’s voice was urgent. It kicked Michael straight into action, raising his weapon and scanning for the threat; which came in the form of two bodies approaching them at speed. Both armed. So this was it then. All of that just to be shot down like old dogs.

“Gavin!?” One of them was calling, and while it wasn’t a voice that Jeremy recognised, it’s tone was fond an it made Gavin go slack in their arms. Something genuine crossed his face, a sweet kind of joy, and again the honesty in it made Jeremy feel like he was seeing something he shouldn’t.

“Fredy,” Gavin said, all hushed and happy. He tried to stand on his own (Jeremy and Michael wouldn’t stop him) and just about stumbled his way over, right into the arms of his colleagues and closest friends.

It was Trevor by Alfredo’s side, and what a team they were. The reunion between the three of them was oddly intimate. It must have been years since they had all been together like this. Jeremy felt like an intruder in their moment, and even Michael was making himself scarce while the Fakes indulged.

“This should never have fuckin’ happened to you, man,” Alfredo told Gavin, the Golden Boy made scarred and broken. “We shouldn’t have let it.”

“And you _definitely_ shouldn’t have almost let it happen twice,” Gavin responded, shooting cold daggers at Trevor who held his hands up defensively.

“I was hardly expecting _that_ ,” he indicated the building, still violently ablaze. “It spread faster than we thought, alright?” Trevor sounded overly apologetic and Jeremy could only imagine it was because if anyone in the Fakes could serve another crew member’s head on a platter and get away with it, it was Gavin.

Fortunately for him, Gavin was grinning. The delight at being reunited with his friends was still bright as day on his face. “Hardly matters now.” As he spoke, he directed his smile at Michael and Jeremy, nodding in thanks and drawing the attention of both Trevor and Alfredo onto them too. For the first time, they were involved in the conversation, and the nerves almost made Jeremy want to retreat right back into his cell and die there. Bitterly, he thought of Matt’s letter in his pocket, his words echoing. ‘ _You keep your fucking head down, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.’_ If only Matt could see him now. The Fakes staring him down like he might be their next target, the prison ablaze in the background. 

“Jones?” Diaz said suddenly, and Jeremy thought he could hear the red head’s heart beating. “You know you owe us your goddamn life, right? When Trevor called to tell us Gavin was still alive, well shit, we were already tearing down here to kill you.” Michael only gulped, apparently speechless for the first time in his life. Jeremy hardly blamed him. It was a debilitating thought, the Fakes in a blind and murderous rage with you as their target. “I guess it’s lucky we didn’t.”

Before they could process that, a sound over the horizon distracted everyone. At first it was just noise, but when he saw Gavin smirking, Jeremy listened closer. Rotary blades in the distance; approaching fast. When Jeremy finally caught sight of the vessel, a beast of a chopper and military issue at that, he thought he might pass out. Of course the goddamn army were going to be here. A fire like that at the jail? He was honestly surprised it had taken this long. He was certain that the fire department, the police must all be present by now, though he admittedly couldn’t make out much difference between them and the officers from the prison.

The shooting started. Heavy, war-like fire from high in the sky, aiming not at them, but at the gathering of guards who were making failed attempts to recuperate on the courtyard. Bombs followed the shots. Dropped unceremoniously from the chopper and blowing limb from limb through the guards as they fired on back at the thing, but didn’t even seem to leave a dent. It was cinematic and glorious, but Jeremy had never been more terrified in his entire life. Michael couldn’t look away. The chopper was nearing them now, as close as it could get without flying too low and leaving itself exposed to the shots from the prison guards; it was near enough that Jeremy could clearly make out the Fakes emblem tacked proudly onto the side. There was still a swarm of guards and police between their little group and the chopper, but when Jeremy saw a ladder drop down from the side of it, he knew that was their only chance.

“I think that’s our cue!” Gavin said with a smile, snatching a gun from Trevor (he and Alfredo were armed to the teeth anyway) and making as if to saunter on over there. He stumbled, still weak from the smoke inhalation and the heat he had endured in the cell, but his crew didn’t let him fall. With an arm each around the Golden Boy’s waist and a gun in their free hands, Trevor and Alfredo were more than prepared to clear the path for their escape. Jeremy only assumed it was his place to follow them now. He’d be damned if he was staying here.

“Hey,” Michael said, apparently find his voice again. Jeremy wished he hadn’t. Everything that Michael said came with a hint of aggression, a tone that he had gotten used to but one that had definitely frustrated him at the beginning of their friendship. The last thing they needed to do was aggravate the Fakes right now, when it was all almost over. “We need guns.” Demanding as he was, Michael was right. Both of them had no means of defence besides one lousy pistol Michael had stolen from the prison officer. Given the army of weaponised guards they were about to power through, that wasn’t enough.

The Fakes stared back at them for a moment in deliberation. At first Jeremy thought that might be a good thing, they hardly seemed annoyed, but when he saw Gavin flinch and turn away a million things seemed to happen at once.

First, he heard a gunshot.

There were many of them, ringing all around, but this one was close; right in front of him in fact.

Second, Michael collapsed.

And third, Diaz dropped the offending weapon at Jeremy’s feet. Just like that, the Fakes took off running, leaving Jeremy and Michael behind.


	5. Melded

> "A frown dipped in molten metal
> 
> Grows a golden grin.
> 
> Fire and Gold are family."
> 
> \- _fire and gold (K.L.C)_

For a moment, Jeremy thought the world might have stopped spinning.

“Fuck!” Michael was yelling, amid other expletives as he clutched his bleeding leg on the floor. Jeremy supposed if he put a bit more thought to it, he might have even seen this coming. Michael had permanently scarred the _Golden Boy_. How could they have allowed themselves to believe he would walk away from that unharmed? Or walk away from it at all? “He shot me. He fucking shot me!”

“I know,” Jeremy said, sounding a little annoyed though he wasn’t. It was the terror trying to hide itself he assumed, as he reached for the gun that Alfredo had left them.

“Oh fuck…” Michael muttered, quieter now. He was afraid, Jeremy realised, in a moment of utter devastation. “I can’t get up. I can’t fucking move.” Was he crying? Did it matter? “I can’t move…”

_‘Leave the dead to die’_ Jeremy heard echoing in his head, resounding like a beacon in the darkness. The Fakes had carried Gavin far away now, holding off their attackers without even really breaking a sweat. If he left now, Jeremy could be right beside them in seconds. He could be flying safely off into the darkness in a chopper branded by the most notoriously dangerous gang he’d ever known. He might never have to worry about a damn thing in life ever again, because he would be a Fake through and through.

And Michael would die here, surrounded by his own destruction and completely alone.

“You have to,” Jeremy told him, holding out his hand. “Come on.”

Michael looked like he wanted to say something. ‘Go without me,’ maybe, ‘leave me behind’. But he had never claimed to be a selfless man, and he had never said he didn’t fear death. Without a word, he took Jeremy’s outstretched hand and hoisted himself to his feet with a grunt of pain.

“Jeremy, I can’t-“ Michael was saying, but Jeremy didn’t have the time to listen, wrapping Michael’s arm over his shoulder and holding the gun awkwardly in his other hand. It was impossible, supporting all of his weight and thinking to fire even a single decent shot.

“Shut up. You have to.” Jeremy told him, glancing with a cloud of conflict between Michael and their only useful weapon. “I’ve never shot anyone before.”

There was a moment of painful silence between them, Michael’s face hard and heavy with strain, the blood from his wound dripping onto Jeremy now too. Maybe he should have patched it up first; no time.

Finally, Michael said: “I have.”

Jeremy gave him the gun, and pushed forwards wordlessly towards the chopper.

Gavin and Trevor were already inside, only Alfredo remaining on the ladder and all of them still shooting at their aggressors. They had the vast majority of the guards thoroughly distracted, but Michael and Jeremy hadn’t gone unnoticed when they entered the fray. Bullets whizzed past them, Michael was on his fucking A-game and Jeremy realised he had never experienced anything even close to this, but his impulses were on fire. He was ducking and dodging, carrying Michael the whole time and barely even feeling his weight at all anymore. He watched men die without flinching. As it turned out, Michael was a damn good shot and for a man already suffering from one bullet wound in the leg, he hardly reacted at all to being hit again in the shoulder. Jeremy felt the impact, heard him grunt, but they had to keep moving. Michael had to keep shooting, and he did.

“They won’t…” Jeremy could just about hear Michael over all of the gunfire. “They won’t let me on.”

It seemed dumb, but Jeremy hadn’t even considered that. Why would the Fakes be interested in carrying Michael Jones away to safety after what he had done to Gavin? After they had already shot him and left him for dead? They would deny him, almost certainly. Jeremy may as well have been carrying a corpse, nothing but a hindrance to his own survival.

But Michael was _alive_ dammit, and as long as Jeremy had him, he would fucking stay that way.

“So what are they waiting for?” Jeremy asked him, a sudden burst of confidence in his voice. He didn’t feel the courage, but it looked like Michael might even believe him because the chopper _was_ still hovering there, with little other purpose. All of the fakes were safely on board now. They were waiting for Jeremy, and even though just yesterday he had considered throttling Michael to death for getting him into this mess in the first place, now they were a package deal. Maybe born out of friendship or possibly just out of sheer spite, Jeremy would not allow Michael to die here.

They were close enough now that Jeremy could see Gavin up there in the chopper, could meet his eyes. His stare was intense, brow furrowed almost as though he might be somehow concerned. Trevor and Alfredo were pretty blank by comparison. It gave him a little surge of genuine determination when Jeremy realised that Gavin was rooting for them. He didn’t want to watch them die today either, and it was that little bit of hope that he needed.

Michael shot and Jeremy ran until the ladder was finally within reaching distance. With some insistence, Jeremy convinced Michael to head up in front of him. Still not entirely convinced that they wouldn’t take off without him, it wasn’t worth the risk of leaving him on the ground even for a second. Injured as he was, Michael had to hand off the gun in order to find strength to climb. The weapon was warm and menacing in Jeremy’s shaking hands. Looking up, he saw Trevor and Alfredo both focused now, firing out into the crowd at his own back. Covering for them, he realised. The Fakes were shooting, and they were shooting for _him_. Gavin was reaching out for Michael’s hand, hoisting him up in a moment of triumphant victory for Jeremy, and he turned to survey the damage behind him before making his own ascent.

Except he saw something that stopped him dead.

One rogue prison guard, untouched by the rain of bullets from up above, had a clean and uninterrupted shot lined up right for Gavin’s head.

He was incapacitated, holding Michael’s arms and lifting him to safety.

Alfredo’s aim was elsewhere. Trevor hadn’t even glanced this way.

So it was up to Jeremy, and he fired without thinking, catching the guy right in the neck. The blood spray was harrowing, his collapse to the floor jittery and his chokes resounding. It was horrific, and Jeremy watched the man die on a bullet that he had fired.

Somewhere in his conscious mind, Jeremy knew that unless he wanted to die just like that too, he had to move. On autopilot, he grabbed onto the ladder. It swayed horribly as soon as he had it in his grip, the chopper taking flight instantly but he barely noticed. The world had become awfully quiet and still for him. It stayed that way while he made his ascent, and only came back in a rush of colour and sound when he was pulled inside by the Fakes.

“Sick shot, J,” Alfredo was telling him, scanning him over insistently for injuries and all that Jeremy could do for a moment was let him. “Kinda messy, but it hit the mark.”

Towards the back of the chopper, Gavin was tending to Michael’s bullet wounds. He had been hit more than Jeremy could recall, once in the shoulder and another to go alongside Alfredo’s shot in his leg. Trevor was still firing, and before Jeremy could figure out why, Alfredo had joined him. There were explosions sounding off in the distance. Whoever had been tailing them, they weren’t anymore, but it still took a while for everybody to visibly relax. They rested in it for a moment, the relative peace and quiet that came at the end of a successful job. Jeremy knew it well, but never on this scale. He had been as good as dead mere moments ago and yet here he was, living. The euphoria was indescribable, incomparable; and kind of addictive.

“Took your ‘effing time,” Gavin said to break the silence. He actually said ‘effing’ too, which made Jeremy laugh. The sound of his own chuckling made him quite abruptly hyper aware of the situation. They had just pulled off a prison break from a high security jail, and he was laughing in a helicopter with the most notorious gang in the city. People who had been legends and myths were sitting all around him. He suddenly felt quite light headed, but maybe that was just the altitude.

“Geoff’s gonna hug you until you suffocate and die, I think,” Trevor told him, Gavin that is, who was grinning like an idiot at the thought of it.

Geoff Ramsey. The Kingpin. Jeremy never thought he’d come face to face with that man in his entire life, _hoped_ that he wouldn’t in fact, because it would only mean he had royally fucked up in some irreparable way. He supposed that he was right about that much.

“I’ve done enough nearly dying for the lot of us.” Gavin declared, and they were quiet while they made their descent to the ground.

\---

The chopper had barely been grounded for a single second before Gavin was leaping out the side of it. Both Alfredo and Trevor stayed close by him at all times and Trevor, some overprotective instinct kicking in now that they’d won back a friend who they’d once thought lost. Outside, Jeremy could hear the joyous yells of reunion. He could imagine Gavin wrapping his arms around old friends, people he hadn’t seen for a cruel couple of years now, but he didn’t dare venture out there just yet. Knowing that he would be face to face with Geoff Ramsey was enough to keep him firmly rooted to where he sat for now.

Michael looked like he might be drifting off. They had left him propped up at the back of the vehicle, his wounds cleaned and wrapped but the blood was still soaking through his bandages. He definitely wasn’t looking so hot, and Jeremy found himself more panicked by that than he thought he ought to be. In all fairness, he had just worked his ass off to save Michael. It would be a pretty lame reward to watch him bleed out and die anyway.

“Hey.” Jeremy called for his attention. When he didn’t get it right away, he picked up a bullet casing and threw it, hitting Michael in the side of the head and making him groan in frustration. “Stay awake.”

“I am awake,” Michael muttered, sounding groggy and keeping his eyes stubbornly closed. “Now let me die in peace.”

“You’re not dying,” Jeremy told him without leaving room for refusal. Even if he knew that what Michael had said was probably mostly a joke, he wanted to make it perfectly clear that there was no way in Hell he was about to let Michael die and leave him to clear up this mess all by himself. Face up to the Fakes alone.

“No?” Michael laughed, opening one eye to squint at Jeremy in the darkness. “Do you see it too? That bright light!”

In any other situation, Jeremy might even have laughed along with Michael’s teasing. As it was though, he was feeling pretty high strung and with damn good reason to be anxious.

“Shut up dude,” he sighed, trying to shake off his own worries and finding they felt even heavier than before. “Just stay awake.”

If Michael was irritated by that, for once he didn’t say so. “I saw what you did for Gavin,” he said instead. “He’d be dead now for sure if you hadn’t made that shot.”

“Yeah, well,” Jeremy cringed. The last thing he wanted to think about right now was the gruesome death he had condemned another man to out of his own sheer panic. It was a spur of the moment decision and he wasn’t entirely sure that it had been the right one. “He’d be dead without you too, so I guess we’re both in the clear.”

“Ah, mine’s a little more convoluted though. You killed a guy who had a gun to his head. They’re _definitely_ letting you in.”

‘In’ Jeremy realised, meant into their crew. He was moments away from being offered membership to the Fakes, and while he had already kind of known it, hearing it spoken aloud felt different. He wouldn’t be some small time criminal anymore. No more glorified shop-lifting, no more scavenging for ten dollars bills, no more freedom. Instead, Jeremy would be one of the most wanted men in the city. He would be respected and feared on a scale that he had never even been _known_ before, and it was overwhelming in a way that made him feel like he might throw up.

“What if I don’t want ‘in’?” Jeremy asked, barely realising he was speaking out loud until it was too late. That had certainly woken Michael up.

“Are you fucking serious?” The red head was staring at him like he’d just turned down a million dollar deal; which he supposed he had in some weird roundabout way.

“I got family man,” that wasn’t exactly true, but he did have Matt. Jeremy couldn’t just abandon him after everything they had been through, all that they had built. It was a small and quaint business that they ran, but it was all they had and they were damn proud of it too.

“Don’t be stupid, Jeremy,” Michael said, but there was none of his typical aggression in his tone. He was frowning, a serious look that didn’t suit his face. “Family? If you wanna see them again, you _don’t_ turn down an offer from the Fakes.”

He was right of course. They were hardly about to let Jeremy walk away from this without tying him into some kind of commitment, because ultimately he was one of the only people in the world who knew exactly what the prison break plan had been and how it had been effectively executed. These weren’t the kind of secrets Ramsey would want floating around unmonitored in his city. Certainly, there would be terms and conditions to his involvement in this, and it was almost a given that Jeremy would be roped into the Fakes for life now. A long time ago, through some of his very first jobs, he might have even dreamed of an opportunity like that. It hardly seemed as appealing now, when he had so much to lose.

But then again, would Matt really resent him for it in the end? What would he do, given the same situation to deal with? It was hard to say. Matt had always been smarter, better equipped to deal with these kinds of things and Jeremy had relied too heavily on him. He could see that now, stuck in a loop with no idea of the right thing to do.

“Hey,” Michael said, distracting Jeremy in a way that made him realise he had been too silent, too obviously contemplative. “You’re a good guy, Jeremy. You could have left me behind back there but you didn’t.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Jeremy tried to shrug it off, but Michael was having none of it.

“No, not ‘of course’. That was a crazy stupid thing to do. You would have been way better off without me.”

“We’re friends, man.” Jeremy frowned, as though this were obvious.

“But we weren’t; not really. Not like that.”

It sounded harsh out of context, but they both knew that he was right. Sure, they got along well enough, and Jeremy genuinely had taken a real liking to Michael. They were fond of each other’s company. Certainly though, they hadn’t been at ‘lay down my life for you’ level until Jeremy had decided that Michael was worth saving. If you had told him mere hours ago that he would be risking his own survival to carry Michael Jones to safety, he would definitely have laughed. Look at the two of them now.

“All I’m saying is, you did something nobody else woulda done back there.” As he spoke, Michael was cautiously bringing himself to his feet. He looked a little unstable, but he was managing. “So don’t walk out here now, say something stupid, and get yourself killed. It’d be a real fucking waste.” Without hesitation, he dropped right out of the side of the chopper. Into the lion’s den, and Jeremy had no choice but to follow.

The Fakes ( _all_ of them, Jeremy realised, which certainly made his blood run a little colder) had moved away from where they landed, forming a small, celebratory group at the very edge of the mountaintop they had made their descent on. Unlike when he had first laid eyes on a Fake and found himself feeling a little underwhelmed by the theatrics, Jeremy was truly a little shaken by the sight of all of them together. They were undeniable in their notoriety and the lot of them gathered around like that was likely a sight that no living man outside of their crew could claim to have seen.

Gavin was telling some animated story, though what he could possibly have to say after spending months locked in a box Jeremy wasn’t sure, and typically he commanded the attention of their entire group. In the dead of night they were difficult to see, but Jeremy knew even from back here that Alfredo couldn’t keep his eyes off of the Golden Boy’s new scars. As they edged a little bit closer, he noticed the twitch in Gavin’s smile. It bothered him.Jack, the crew’s trusted and insanely skilled pilot, watched Gavin speak fondly without saying much. She was more feminine than Jeremy might have expected. To be a woman in this business, and at her level nonetheless… she commanded the utmost respect immediately. Trevor slotted himself so easily into their ranks that you’d think he had been amongst the Fakes for years, but Jeremy had never even heard his name so much as seen his face before now. Perhaps he was new, but Jeremy had always suspected that the largest, most successful criminal enterprise in this city couldn’t practically be run by four people alone. Rumours whispered that the Fakes had their own support team, lesser known and less involved but pivotal to their position of power just the same. It seemed the gossips knew greater truths than they were given credit for.

Then of course, there was Geoff Ramsey.

The Kingpin, the head of the Fakes, possibly the most powerful man in this goddamn city but none of that was the cause for Jeremy choking up like a deer in the fucking headlights.

As he and Michael approached, Ramsey turned to face them and in that moment, Jeremy was transported back to one of the first jobs Matt had ever planned for them. Geoff’s eyes, his face, everything. He knew this man. They had met, and the thought gave him whiplash.

_“Cash in the fucking bag now!”_

_That might have been a little aggressive for a gas station hit, but hey. Jeremy had always been a fan of the theatrics; all decked out with the classic black robber mask across his face and all. If Matt were here, he’d be rolling his eyes, but as it was his best friend waited patiently in a getaway car just outside; monitoring the police response and of course, sufficiently armed. Just in case. That was how Matt planned everything, foreseeing their worst possible fate and counteracting it with any method he could muster. Matt always wanted things to be simple, but Jeremy thought fuck that. If he had to be a criminal he may as well have a little fun with it._

_So that was why he had busted in on the cashier without giving him a second to remember his own name, throwing a drawstring bag his way and aiming a gun right between his eyes. No hesitation. The thing wasn’t loaded anyways, so Jeremy felt pretty confident flailing it around without a care in the world. Maybe too confident. He hadn’t even thought to check the store for civilians until the little bell above the door rang and Jeremy felt himself freeze up. They could really do without some asshole running off and calling the cops on them right now. So Jeremy had to make a fast call, reaching across the counter and grabbing the panicked cashier by his shirt front, not allowing him to become complacent, and training his gun on the stranger at the door instead._

_“Where the fuck do you think you’re going!?” He called to the would-be escapee. “Hurry it up,” to the guy he had hold of, who was still whimpering and filling the bag as fast as he could. The man at the door wasn’t nearly as afraid in a way that riled Jeremy up a little. He hadn’t even turned around, just stopped dead in the doorway seeming disinterested. “Hey! Turn around, buddy. We’re not done here.”_

_His shoulders moved in a way that made it look like he might have even_ sighed. _It was insulting. Jeremy’s finger twitched over the trigger, knowing full well that he couldn’t open fire (and wouldn’t, even if the gun was loaded) but wanting to pump a little scare into this arrogant prick as he turned around with tired eyes. Noticing the gun, he lifted his hands up slowly. Bored._

_“I came for cookies,” the man said, and he was indeed holding a packet of chocolate chip goodness. “I got ‘em. So I’ll be on my way now.”_

_He wore a grey hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, dark and winding tattoos visible right the way up his arms and disappearing further still, paired with some dark slacks. He had tired eyes, a deep set frown. The man reeked of a relaxed day on the couch, watching shitty old movies and thinking hey, maybe I’ll run down to the gas station and get myself some cookies, yeah that’d be a great idea. Just a shame that he had picked this gas station, on this day. And an even greater shame that he thought Jeremy didn’t mean business._

_“You’re not walkin’ out that fucking door today-“ Jeremy was attempting to warn him, putting on his best intimidating voice and not veiling his threats, but he was interrupted by the shivering cashier shoving a bursting bag of money his way._

_“Please man,” he whined pathetically. “I got two kids…”_

_And in that handful of moments Jeremy had spent with his attention firmly locked on somebody else, the tired, tattooed man was right in front of him. It startled him enough that he almost lost his grip on his weapon, before the man was pressing the barrel of that gun right between his own eyes without even a flash of fear. And Jeremy had no idea what to do. The guy was calling his fucking bluff. If the gun was loaded than Jeremy definitely should have shot him, but he didn’t because he couldn’t and somehow, this man already knew that._

_Everything stopped and for a moment, Jeremy was a far cry from the tough and ruthless criminal he had pretended to be when he walked through that door. He had been well and truly humiliated. As if this weren’t enough, the man only waited a couple of seconds before knocking the weapon right out of Jeremy’s pitifully shaky hands._

_“You’ve got heart kid,” he said. “But nobody brings a loaded gun to their first hit.”_

_This was not his first hit, Jeremy wanted to say, but the words stuck pathetically in his throat. In a move that was so quick it was difficult to even register, the guy reached over the cashier and felt for a panic button. Jeremy didn’t bother to stop him._

_“Disconnected?” He asked, and though Jeremy didn’t nod, he may as well have. “Smart. Maybe I’ll see you around. Penny for my troubles?” And with that, he pocketed two twenty dollar bills from the front of Jeremy’s bag with a grin, turning back on his heel and heading out the door; totally unchallenged by Jeremy, who had only just remembered how to breathe again._

Geoff was the man from the gas station, no doubt about it. Jeremy had thought about him for weeks after the guy ran a monster truck through his fantasy criminal life, but he had never seen him again; never thought that he would either. But here he was, plain as day. Geoff Ramsey.

If Geoff remembered Jeremy too, he didn’t say so. He approached with a smile that was strangely soft, his crew at his heels and the whole city lit up in the distance behind him. Drenched in an undeniable authority that made Jeremy shiver, but grinning as though the weight of this whole mountain wasn’t resting on his shoulders. This man was impressive beyond belief and he didn’t even seem like he knew it.

“Seems like I owe you one,” Geoff said, holding his hand out to Jeremy. It took him too long to realise he was supposed to receive it, but a discreet little shove from Michael had him reaching out to shake it. “Geoff Ramsey.”

“Jeremy Dooley…” he breathed, his arm feeling slack but Geoff didn’t mind. He let him go without comment.

“That shot you made was the grossest thing I’ve ever seen in my life dude,” Geoff laughed, and Jeremy tried not to cringe with yet another reminder of what he had done to save the Golden Boy; and by extension, himself. “Next time, just go for the head.”

“Bullet in the neck is a nasty way to go,” Jack agreed, but she was laughing too. Jeremy felt kind of dizzy.

“Fucker deserved it though.” Trevor grumbled, having of course been more closely acquainted with the dead man in question through his time spent undercover.

“Charming,” Gavin said. He had that languid smile on his face that had made Jeremy panic before, but seeing him now it almost just felt like he might be relaxed for the first time in years. He hadn’t said anything particularly conniving or clever since they had landed. Gavin was home.

“You’ve got a lot to learn kid, but you’ve got heart,” Geoff’s words echoed his very first to Jeremy, and it was making his mind run a mile a goddamn minute. This was overwhelming in a way that nothing could have prepared him for. “So I’m pretty sure that _we_ could be the ones to teach you.”

Figuring that was about as direct as an offer to join one of the most notorious gangs in history could get, Jeremy predictably chose now to speak up like a total asshole. “Matt.” He said, stupidly. Michael cursed quietly beside him, but he had started now and there was no going back. The soil was disturbed so he may as well keep digging the hole. Clearing his throat, Jeremy continued. “I have a guy, Matt Bragg. We’ve got a… business. Not something I can just walk away from.” ‘So thanks, but no thanks’ Jeremy was thinking of a way to politely say, but Gavin came to his rescue with something that changed everything.

“Matt Bragg?” he laughed like silk. “God, I should have bloody known.”

“You _know_ him?” Jeremy asked after a moment, utterly breathless.

“I know him well,” Gavin nodded. “He hired me privately to consult on quite a few heist plans. Never a damn thing out of place with that guy, but he liked to run an extra pair of eyes over everything.”

That motherfucker, Jeremy thought. _Keep away from them_ , Matt would always warn him whenever the Fakes might come up in conversation, _we don’t need that kind of trouble._ Yet there he was, colluding with the Golden Boy the entire time.

“You would vouch for this guy?” Geoff asked, and Jeremy was about to shout to the heavens that of course he would, but they were obviously asking Gavin’s opinion, not his. It took him a painful couple of seconds to formulate his response.

“I would,” Gavin decided and Jeremy thought that the Earth might be spinning too fast. “That guy was full of ideas. Not all of them good, but they were different.” He shrugged. “And I could barely get a read on him; I quite liked that.”

Geoff nodded, and just like that it seemed to be settled. “Alright then. Whatever business you two had is ours now, buddy.” It was hardly a negotiation, but Jeremy was too elated to care. He knew they could read his joy on his face and he was done hiding it. This was monumental, life-changing and he couldn’t fucking wait to go and find Matt, tell him what he had done for them both on this mountain top tonight.

But there was still one last score to settle between Jeremy Dooley and the Fakes.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, Michael Jones,” Gavin hummed, with a smirk playing about his lips that said he knew exactly what game he was playing. The tension in the air felt palpable as Ramsey’s smile dropped. His jovial nature slipped away, revealing a cold and calculated stare; a mob boss, if Jeremy had ever seen one. Michael was a ball of nervous energy, but he stood strong against the winds by Jeremy’s side. This man had fought his way to the execution platform and now, with the noose already around his neck, they would decide his fate.

“The same Michael Jones who almost killed my front man?” Geoff asked with something coldly innocent in his tone, as though he didn’t already know the answer to his question. Nobody responded, though for a moment Jeremy had thought that Michael might be about to. He was always loaded up with something stupid to say. Some biting comeback. Apparently he _did_ have some indication of when he should hold his tongue. Or that’s what Jeremy thought anyway, enjoying the way that the silence settled the air before Michael broke it brutally. The peace was disrupted and Jeremy was standing on the wrong side of no man’s land.

“Same one who just saved his ass too,” Michael spat. Jeremy couldn’t help but recall that not ten minutes ago it had been Michael telling _him_ not to say something wrong and get himself killed; how ludicrous that seemed now.

“You saved him?” Ramsey said, a smile curving on his mouth that looked nothing like the one he had used to welcome Jeremy with moments ago. This one was sinister and powerful. Jeremy had seen it before, in the gas station when Geoff was showing him just how underqualified he was to be waving a gun around like he knew how to use it. “That’s funny. I almost thought _I_ was the one who brought the chopper.”

“And I brought the fire.” Michael argued again and Jeremy could have screamed. It simply wasn’t in his nature to back down, but these weren’t the type of people you were supposed to play games with. If Geoff Ramsey told you something was true, there was no alternative. “ _I_ unlocked his door and _I_ carried him out of there.”

Gavin watched the whole exchange with a little grin, seeming to somehow enjoy this back and forth between the two of them. Even Jack appeared somewhat amused by it. Michael Jones up against the king of the criminal underworld. Somehow Jeremy figured he would always have ended up here, one way or another.

“I _like_ you,” Geoff said suddenly, catching Jeremy (and apparently Michael too, judging by the dumbfounded look on his face) completely off guard. It looked as though he might be about to smile, to drop the stern persona and fall right back into the friendly and personable man he had been when he first approached them, but instead, Geoff reached for his gun. “But I think you already know how this ends.”

“Wait!” Jeremy cried, but before he could even blink the weapon was raised and aimed right at Michael’s head. As quickly as he had trained it between Michael’s eyes, Geoff was firing his gun, and all of Jeremy’s hard work had been for nothing. The grief that tore through him in that moment was excruciating, unwarranted and crushing. Michael had become something so much more than his prison buddy the second that he had taken Jeremy’s hand in the courtyard, tore through the guards with him on their journey to hell. When they boarded that chopper together, there was something unspoken, intangible in the air that they both knew meant this was for life now. No going back. Born from the flames was a friendship that felt impenetrable. And it had felt _good_ to know that in the midst of all of this, at least they would have each other. In seconds, all of that which had felt unbreakable was gone.

Except beside him, Michael was still breathing.

Geoff’s bullet kicked up dirt in the ground at Michael’s feet, Gavin still holding onto his arm with an urgent look in his eyes. He had pulled his boss away at the very last second. He had saved Michael’s life; returned the favour.

“You lot are so dramatic!” Gavin yelled, unperturbed in the face of Geoff’s anger. It was a laughable statement coming from him, possibly the most eccentric person on the planet, but Jeremy certainly didn’t feel much like laughing. He was trying to remember what it felt like to have his feet on the ground again, watching Michael like he might evaporate. “I imagine if it wasn’t for Michael, I’d be very dead! You owe him just as much as you owe Jeremy; maybe even more.”

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” Geoff frowned, shrugging Gavin off of him and regaining his control over the situation. It had slipped there, in a way that Jeremy had a feeling Geoff wouldn’t have let slide so easily had anyone else undermined him. “He owed us. The debts been paid. But I don’t like loose ends.”

“So tie them,” Gavin insisted.

“No way,” Geoff shook his head. This was an impressive exchange to witness, the human embodiment of an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, but Jeremy knew who he had his money on. Who he _hoped_ would come out on top, anyway. Geoff was still holding that gun a little too tight, and Michael hadn’t moved since it was fired. Instinctively, Jeremy edged closer to him. Michael should know that he wouldn’t abandon him at the last hurdle, but just in case it wasn’t already clear, he needed to show him where his loyalties lie.

“I’m not going anywhere without him.” Jeremy said, sounding thankfully a lot stronger than he felt.

“Fuck me,” Ramsey groaned, turning his irritated glare Jeremy’s way which almost made him flinch. “You got any other fuckin’ conditions I should know about for the opportunity of your goddamn lifetime?”

“Stop pointing guns at my people. That’s my condition,” Jeremy hit back, leaving just about everybody shocked but none so much as himself. What was he fucking thinking? Michael hadn’t said a damn word since that gun was fired, and maybe Jeremy had been subconsciously trying to compensate for the lack of misplaced arrogance in the air now that his fiery friend had piped down; but it was stupid, and he thought it might have even been detrimental before Gavin spoke up for them once again.

“Geoff,” he sighed, all soft and sweet. “Please. I’ll vouch for him.”

Just that looked like it might have been enough. Jeremy found himself wondering if Gavin had ever _not_ gotten something that he wanted.

“You had your say.” Geoff said but his frown was teetering more on the gentler side now. His tough demeanour was chipping away, slowly but surely. “One new recruit per person Gav, and Matt’s yours. Can’t go breaking my own rules in front of fresh meat, can I?”

If Matt counted as Gavin’s selected candidate for the Fakes, then Jeremy supposed that meant _he_ was riding on the recommendation of Geoff Ramsey himself. Before he had time to dwell on that terrifying thought though, something very surprising happened.

“I’ll back him,” Alfredo said with a smile, though up until now he had seemed frankly quite disinterested in whether Michael lived or died. Maybe he was impressed to see Michael standing here so strong after he had personally shot at him not hours ago, or perhaps just a morbid curiosity in what he could bring, Jeremy didn’t know, but something had certainly changed his mind. “We could probably use a pyro, right?”

Geoff was displeased, but he didn’t argue. “Whatever.” He sighed, withdrawing his weapon. “If he’s anything like your last recruit, can you _not ‘_ fire’ him all over the fuckin’ carpet this time?”

“Y’all got me fucked up for thinking that guy was normal. He deserved that shit.” Alfredo laughed.

While that was certainly a very unnerving thought, Jeremy wasn’t listening much anymore anyway. His gaze was fixed firmly on Michael now. Feeling the elation boil low in his chest, Jeremy thought back on the bittersweet image of himself just a couple of hours ago, sitting alone in a decaying old prison cell and wondering if he would die tonight. Wondering if he would watch Michael die too, the thought pounding on his heart more than he would have liked to admit; but look at them now. On top of a mountain – on top of the world.

“If you boys are done bickering,” Jack said all of a sudden, dragging all attention her way. “I’m ready to go home.”

Gavin broke out into the realest smile Jeremy had ever seen him wear. “Christ, I need a bath.”

“Geoff used up your lavender scrub,” Trevor told him with a smirk, earning himself an indignant squawk from Gavin and a harsh glare from Ramsey.

“And now all the biggest mob bosses shiver at the scent of fresh flowers,” Jack laughed, the chuckles of the crew echoing behind her.

The Fakes went off up ahead and at first, Jeremy almost forgot that he was supposed to follow them. Michael too it seemed, since they were both left standing around dumbly trying to remember what life had been like a couple of minutes ago.

“What the fuck just happened…” Michael said to the air.

“Yeah…” Jeremy said back, quite pathetically but what else was there to say? Something catastrophic and phenomenal had just happened. They had survived.

“I think you just saved my life again.” Michael looked distant, blank, and despite himself Jeremy let out a breathy laugh. The sound of it seemed to bring a bit of the Michael that he knew back. He couldn’t be more grateful. “Fucking Christ, how am I supposed to pay that back?”

Now Jeremy was really laughing. “Just stop nearly dying. I’ll take not having to save your ass anymore as payment.”

“Hey,” Michael flashed a grin, a look that reminded Jeremy of the first time he had ever met this frustratingly likable idiot. “No promises.” Jeremy had wanted to punch him in his stupid face back then just as much as he wanted to now, but for vastly different reasons. If you had told him when Michael sat down across from him in the cafeteria that one day, they’d be sharing sooty smiles on a mountain top while the whole prison burned far away, Jeremy would have sworn to all hell he would kill this motherfucker. Many times, he had wanted Michael Jones dead. Funny how now, his heart broke at the thought.

Abruptly, Jeremy was pulling Michael into his arms. It took his friend a moment to reciprocate but when he did, his embrace was tight and meaningful. These two men had fought their way through hell together, come face to face with the devil himself; learned that the devil protects his own.

And they _both_ owed an awful lot of this to Gavin, who made his presence known just as they emerged from each other’s arms.

“As touching as this is,” he drawled, all lazy smirks and drawn out sentences. “Jack’s almost as impatient as I am. She won’t wait much longer.”

With a grin, Michael gave Jeremy one last pat on the shoulder and started making his way over to the chopper. He was a little shaky on his feet, no doubt the residual fear from almost being put down mere moments ago still coursing through his body, but Michael held himself well enough. Jeremy went as if to follow him, but was stopped by a hushed silver voice.

“That was a very stupid thing that you did for him, Jeremy.” Gavin told him. In his tone was a warning, but on his face he wore a grin. Unsure what emotion he was supposed to present in response, Jeremy could only decide to be honest. Now had Gavin done that intentionally, or was he just a little too easy to manipulate? Impossible to tell.

“I guess carrying a guy through a fuckin’ battlefield makes you care about him a little,” he shrugged with a small and uncertain smile. It was something of a relief when Gavin mimicked his relaxed approach.

“What about saving a guy from his cage inside of a burning building?” the Golden Boy laughed. “I hope it has the same effect.”

Was Gavin asking Jeremy if he cared about him right now? If that was the case, then was he really expected to answer? Everything that Jeremy had done for him up until this point had been performed autonomously; acting on impulse in fear of the detriment to his own survival should he make the wrong call. At least, that’s what Jeremy assumed. Now that he was committing a little more thought to it though, was that really even possible? Could Jeremy truly have killed for Gavin if he couldn’t give a damn about him? He thought about the Fakes, about those of them he knew and those of them he had experienced his first brushes with today, and Jeremy found himself almost certain that everything would feel entirely off-kilter without Gavin here with him.

By the time he had formulated his answer, Gavin was already walking away.

“On the courtyard,” Jeremy found himself saying, dragging Gavin’s muted interest back onto him as he spun on his heel with that same small smile playing about his lips. “With Michael… you told me ‘leave the dead to die’.” He could still hear it now, echoing in Gavin’s smooth voice while the prison turned to ash just beyond. “I didn’t. I couldn’t.” Jeremy would sooner have been shot to death in the burning courtyard than left Michael behind. Even when the Fakes had abandoned him and made it clear that Michael had no place alongside them, Jeremy wouldn’t give up. “So what am I still doing here?”

There was a tangible pause between them where Gavin’s hinted smile spread into a undeniable grin. “I like you, Jeremy.” He said, and for a moment Jeremy thought that might even be the only answer he would get. “You take care of your own. I never would have let you set foot on that chopper if you’d have left Michael behind. That kind of loyalty… it’s hard to come by, and it’s invaluable to me – to us.” Gavin was leaving again now, and this time Jeremy followed. “There’s only one reason that we’ve stayed on top as long as we have. We’re more than what they paint us to be; more than fire and gold. We’re _family_. And we never leave family behind.”

Back on the chopper that had lifted him from hell, Jeremy felt ten feet taller than he had ever been. The city grew smaller beneath him. Michael’s wounds would heal and before long, Matt would be up here with him too. He had protected his family. Soon, they would be _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what a ride <3
> 
> hope y'all enjoyed as much i did! i've been writing some other stuff branching off of this so i might post that at some point too, if anyone would be interested in reading it. 
> 
> thanks so much for reading <3


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